TheHitchhikers GuideTo The Galaxy

Earth Edition

Chaining up patients.

Chaining up patients is something you would expect me, someone who could end up there, to imediately rant about, however recently I saw a programme about doctors who go to, I think it was, refugee camps in somewhere like a war zone to treat phychiatric patients as apparantly in a war situation they are always last to be treated due to injuries, life threatening disease, etc being treated first. Often the patients they found were chained and shackled around legs to keep them around the makeshift homes. They found people with Bi Pola Disorder, Schizophrenia, etc and treated thm with phychiatric medication. You would think I would go "Chaining-how dare they!". However the reason they often gave is the patient, their relative, would often wander off and be at risk. One younger person continually went and stood infront of moving cars in middle of a dangerous fast road. . Clearly chaining isn't ideal and a proper phychiatric hospital or a well run Care In Community programme would be ideal, but we are talking about refugees in a war zone here! . Chaining in the Bedlam Hospital in past of course is differant and a shame they at least didn't have secure areas so they could be unchained. The problem is of course chaining would make a patient even worse and change mild depression to surely a deeper on. The fear going through a badly Paranoid patient must have been hell of course with them contantly wondering what will happen to them. One suspects those chained would often self harm anyway they could to cope. Even if someone didn't have mental illness, by the end of say 10 years of being chained you would imagine they might develope a way of self harming to cope. The problem is we can see pictures of the chained patients, maybe even find skellingtons, but to realise the horror of what it was like chained up in Bedlam is really difficult and perhaps you would have to have actualy been through it to explain what the real horror of it was like. . There go we but for the grace of God!

Chaining up patients.

I didn't realise it was still going on. I don't know enough about war zones to comment, but I do wonder if being alive, but chained up for long periods of time is really doing anyone any good. Difficult one.

Chaining up patients.

Oh God no, chaining someone up for whatever reason won't help them as such, in the refugee camp the relatives were doing it it seems, at least one was, to keep the fairly young teenager from being killed in road as kept sitting in front of fast cars. After they were seen by Phychiatrist the relatives were able to remove chains as most patients were stable(ish) on new medication. shame I can't remember where it is, I suspect it was Africa, Iran or Iraq though. It was a new film so suspect the chaining is ongoing in other camps. Of course the war situation is creating more and more people with Phychiatric problems. Oh no, I certainly wasn't trying to say chaining is good, far from it. However the fact that Phychiatric patients come last after major injury, disease that kill, etc are treated is js no surprise. Infact any sort of effective Phychiatric treatment would be a surprise in those bad conditions. I think the Phychiatrists are the Phychiatric version of that medical group called Medical Treatment Without Fronteers, or something like that.

More Conversations for Bedlam - The Hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem

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